OFFSTAGE: Reading Between Taylor Swift’s Mysterious Lines

(CMT Offstage keeps a 24/7 watch on everything that’s happening with country music artists behind the scenes and out of the spotlight.)

Taylor Swift began unveiling additional new music from her forthcoming album Red this week. But if you read between the lines of this interview she did with Rolling Stone
, you can make some assumptions about the music that she hasn’t revealed yet. “There’s a song called ‘Holy Ground’ I’m really excited about, Jeff Bhasker produced it,” she said. That one, I’m guessing is probably not about an ex-boyfriend. (BTW, Bhasker has worked with Fun., Mary J. Blige, Jay-Z and, yes, Kanye West.) But then there’s one called “‘I Knew You Were Trouble” that probably is. She wrote that with Max Martin and Shellback and said she is stoked about it. Swift also talked about the steps she takes when she’s crafting a tune. “When I write a song, the first thing I think about is, OK, this is a message to a person. What are they gonna think when they hear it?’ The second thing I think of is, ‘Ooh, how are we gonna play this in concert? What’s the lighting gonna be like? What costumes are we gonna have?’ So the visual part of the story comes to me pretty quickly after I write the song,” she said. But as for all the mystery surrounding the full track list, Swift just said she wants there to be surprises left when Red comes out. “Some collaborations that haven’t been talked about and some songs that are definitely what make the album so unique,” she said.